The Third Rail – Same-Sex Marriage Part 1 – Introduction

Foreword

This series of blogs has been sitting in my drafts for several months now because I was not sure whether the time was right to post them. However, it seems that, given the context of the series we are now doing on Luke 4:18-19 and Jesus priority for those on the margins, I can no longer sit on this.

Deep breath.

Here we go.

I have been thinking through this issue for years. In fact, seventeen years ago I wrote a chapter for my book, but eventually pulled it out. At the time I was convinced that homosexuality was a choice and that it was wrong, but I was also convinced that it was no worse than any other sin and I was appalled at the way that one group of people could be treated so differently to all others. In the Western church, we almost applaud greed (especially if it means more money in the church) and vilify same sex relationships, yet greed is listed in the same lists as homosexuality (1 Cor 6, 1 Tim 1).

Three years ago I begin to question my position and look at the Bible more deeply. After much study I concluded that I just do not know anymore. I used to, but now I do not. I was convinced, however, that Jesus has a lot to say about judging people and that the Bible, overall, has a many, many times more warnings on this than on homosexuality. I was also convinced that it is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict, not ours. (If you are interested, here are the talks – Sexuality pt1 and pt2).

Over the last year, I have had the increasing realisation that it is not really okay for a pastor to sit on the fence and refuse to make a decision, if for no other reason that, by doing so, I am defaulting to the status quo, which is an anti-LGBT position. As many of you know, I have recently completed an MA in Kingdom Theology, and as I was approaching the end of this, I realised that my final Ethics essay was the opportunity for me to actually properly engage with this subject, particularly given that my lecturer, Andrew Goddard, is opposed to same-sex marriage and had published books on it, so I would have to do it properly if I was going to disagree with him.

During the research for this, I began to change my position from where I had sat for all my Christian life and it became clear what my view was. I have decided that it is time to come clean on this now, because I think it is really important. For this reason, I am serialising my essay over five installments to make it easier to read. The essay is in a deliberate format – one which we were asked to use – which is an adaptation of NT Wright’s hermeneutical framework in which we ask –

What does the creation account tell us?

What does the story of Israel tell us?

What does Jesus say about it?

What do we see about this in the new covenant people (the New Testament tell us?)

What do we see about this in the Age to Come?

I will say now, I have seen enough to think I am right, but also learned enough to know that I have to hold this in an open hand, because I could very well be wrong. Many of the theologians whom I respect the most, do not hold the view that I hold and they are far better women and men than I.

But whatever you conclude, I hope that you can reach a point that we can agree that:

This is not a fundamental of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

This is just not as clear cut as we have always been led to believe and that there are Biblical theologians who love Jesus who hold both views.

This is not a “salvation issue” (as I have heard from pastors), “you cannot be a Christian if you are gay,” because if we do say that then we have to add, “or greedy, or have lustful thoughts, or lie, or…” (because these things are in the same lists).

This issue, mentioned a maximum of five times in Scripture, should not be something that divides us.

Love of God and neighbour must be our overarching guide.

Please do not stop being my friend because we disagree on one issue.

I will give you the punchline now – I do not believe that scripture has anything whatsoever to say about what we understand as LGBT issues or same-sex marriage. I do not believe that my views are liberal (which, to me, implies abandoning scripture in favour of my own ideas) but rather that this is thought-through and considered and rooted entirely in what I see in scripture.

Whatever your position, please read on with an open mind and know that I love Jesus and think that the Bible is just amazing and demands treating with utmost respect, reverence and authority.

Anyway, read on…

Introduction

Twenty years ago, any argument about homosexuality[1] was effectively ended with the unequivocal statement that, “the Bible forbids any sex outside marriage,” and the average Christian or church did not need to wrestle with this too deeply; we were content with a vague understanding that the Bible is against it. Today, legalised same-sex marriage has meant that suddenly, churches and individuals cannot ignore this any longer and instead we must delve into the Bible to see what it really says.

Goddard states that, “nobody has claimed any biblical text is affirmative about homosexual conduct and so a more positive Christian moral judgment would have to be based on other grounds than scripture,”[2] and to attempt this, “requires a… credible critique of the traditional account.”[3] Few would disagree with this, and yet here I am, trying to do exactly that. I want to argue that the onus is not on so-called “revisionists” to critique the so-called “traditionalist” view, but on all Christians to give a good exegesis of scripture. I want to assert that much of our interpretation of the five[4] passages in scripture, that apparently refer to homosexuality, has passed through a contemporary cultural lens and superimposed our constructs onto ancient texts.

I will look at the modern concept of homosexuality, then at these five passages of scripture, normally cited to argue against it, the creation account and ask questions in the light of current scientific understanding and I will look at what Jesus says that can provide a hermeneutical key to ascertain whether homosexuality is something that is biblically permissible.

The Concept of Homosexuality

The concept of someone being “a homosexual” in terms of someone having a sexual orientation, is a relatively modern one, first recorded as being used in 1868.[5] Indeed, Vines states that, “all Christian writings before the past century that mention same-sex behaviour carry this explicit assumption: even if some people are more tempted by same-sex relations than others, no one is exclusively orientated to members of the same sex.”[6]

This should cause us to question Goddard’s claim that the scriptures merely describe, “the most acceptable forms of homosexual conduct,” and thus they are, “rejecting homosexuality per se.”[7] David Bentley Hart asserts that, “the ancient world possessed no comparable concept of a specifically homo-erotic identity.”[8] If the concept of homosexuality was alien to the ancient world, this does not necessarily make any kind of argument for its acceptance but should force us to examine the texts and cultural setting to establish whether each of these five references is actually about something else, and we are in danger of missing the main focus of the passages. To fail to do this properly would be the equivalent of reading Exodus 23:19, “do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk,” and interpreting it as about food and, as has been done by the Jews, making it into a law about not having red meat with dairy and missing the whole point about the cultic fertility practices of the nations around them.[9]

Next time – a look at the Old Testament…

[1] I am going to make the assertion from the beginning that if homosexuality is permissible then same-sex marriage is, also, as the only valid environment for its expression.

[4] I will not deal with the Sodom account in Genesis 19 as “very few Biblical interpreters think this story is about ‘homosexuality,’” ( David P. Gushee, Changing Our Minds (Canton: Read the Spirit Books, 2017) but rather domination and humiliation, and it does not seem a good use of the limited space to engage with it.

[5] Rictor Norton, “A Critique of Social Contructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory,” RickNorton.co.uk, 19 June 2008, <http://rictornorton.co.uk/social14.htm> (4 June 2018). This was found in a proposed revision of the Prussian Penal code. (See also Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian (New York: Convergent Books, 2014), 39,40). The first English usage was in 1892, in Chaddock’s translation of Kraft-Ebbing’s, “Psychopathia Sexualis” (David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (Routledge, 1990), 15. (See also James L. O’Leary and Walter L. Moore, “Charles Gilbbert Chaddock: His LIfe and Contributions,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 8 (1953), 301)). It is certainly not reasonable to assume that the concept of someone having a sexual orientation did not exist before 1868, but it is clear that it was only at this time that the idea was beginning to be more widely recognised and accepted as a phenomenon.